Development of a method for the assessment and evaluation of innovation projects in manufacturing.

Nowadays manufacturing companies are operating in demanding and constantly evolving scenarios. Firms must overcome the major and severe challenges posed by globalized and volatile markets, rapid technological developments, and increasing and diversified customer and employee needs. In a strive for production process improvement, innovation becomes the key factor determining success and competitive advantages, thus representing a resource to be leveraged to ensure the long-term success of the enterprise. However, a careful allocation of the available resources implies an evaluation and comparison between the alternative initiatives. Moreover, the diverse types of innovation projects, such as process, organizational, or social innovations, and the limited amount of information available when the decision-making should be performed, represent a significant challenge for companies. To address the aforementioned problem, in this thesis an assessment model for the description, evaluation, and selection of alternative innovation initiatives in manufacturing is presented. To this purpose, the project assessment was divided into three global dimensions: potential benefits, required effort, and risk assessment. In the definition of potential, the beneficial effects of innovation on numerous target dimensions of production were considered, extending the evaluation beyond the financial benefits by including social and environmental potentials too. The effort assessment, on the other hand, was designed to analyze the project cost from a dual perspective: aside from the monetary expenditures, time was the second critical resource considered. The risk assessment was designed according to a systemization of internal and external risk factors, grouped accordingly to the stages of the project. The attributes detailing the three dimensions were derived and synthesized from extensive literature research, whose core component is a systematic literature review, and organized in three hierarchically organized breakdown structures. The assessment activity was complemented by the description of a MADM method, applying the principles of fuzzy set theory within a hybrid AHP-TOPSIS technique and building an overall decision support system concept. Finally, the model underwent a first revision according to the feedback collected from two experts. The model was overall appraised, and, although still in a concept phase and susceptible to further research and improvements, shows potential for application.